It's hard for me to believe. In just three months, I'll have completed my year without soda. What I thought would be the most challenging part, proved to be the easiest. That was the giving up of soda. What I thought would be the easiest part - losing weight after giving up soda - has proven to be the hardest for me.
I am 60 days into my Isabody challenge. I have shed a total of 25.5 inches of unwanted body fat. Sadly, I haven't lost anything since I posted the last time. But, that's mostly because I stopped being faithful to the Isadiet and stopped adding in the extra exercise I'd been doing. Those choices kicked my butt and for about a week, I went from losing weight to slowly having it creep back into place.
Let me tell you - it was an incredibly discouraging thing to take that tape measure and see those inches were starting to return. Part of me felt like saying, "Well, if I'm just going to end up back where I was what's the point of all this?" but, that was the negative part of me. It's the part that has kept me from being as proactive about my weight as I should have been all along.
The other part of me said, "Okay, if I'm putting the weight back on, let's take a look at the choices I've been making and get back to doing what was working."
I realized I had dropped my planking. I had reached being able to hold the plank for a full 70 seconds and then let laziness take over and gave up doing it. I wasn't following the Isadiet. I was only taking one shake a day rather than the recommended two, and I wasn't keeping my snack choices healthy.
I'm happy to report, though, that putting the exercise back in its place - in addition to all the walking I do - and getting back on top of my diet resulted in me being at maintenance of the inches lost rather than having lost ground. I'm making sure I eat right, eat regularly, and keep my hands off the sweets. It's okay every once in a while, but when it becomes a consistent part of my diet, it quickly becomes a real problem.
What I've learned from this experience is that bad habits are easy to fall back into, but those bad habits can quickly undo all the progress you've gained from making good choices. You have to be vigilant about your choices, and you have to keep measuring yourself to make sure you're headed in the direction you want to be headed. Running from the tape measure won't help.
I think that's true about any positive change we want to make in life. We need to find a measuring tape for our changes, use it regularly, and keep track of the positive gains we've made. We also need to be honest about where we've fallen short and take steps to get ourselves back on track as soon as we're aware of the problem. Losing the weight is a harder battle for me than it might be for some, but it's a battle I'm determined to win.
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